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An Exoplanet 48 Light Years Away Is Checking Boxes · Made of Stars

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Warning. The following podcast contains an entertaining look at astronomy, physics, and
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space news throughout the known universe. Listeners have been known to learn about astronomical
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phenomenon, the scientific method, and expanded vocabulary to include terms like quasar asterism
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and uranus. Listen, that's your own risk. Go ahead. When made
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of stars, made them stars, made sizes. When made of stars,
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you could be from high they would New Mexicomus, where all stars? When
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we are made of stars. I'm Wes Carol, joined by my good friend
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doctor Sean Cruiser from Columbus State Universities Coca Cola Space Science Center. Hey Sean,
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Hey Wes, it's great to be here with you today. I guess
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we could tease this for later. At the end of the show, we
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got a significant announcement about an upcoming episode of Made of Stars that we will
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be doing from somewhere other than our normal positions of doing it. How about
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that geographically exciting and mysterious. We got emails of some import you and I
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did, so that's it, and we have been invited somewhere to participate in
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something very cool. We'll talk about it, I guess towards the end of
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the show a little tease for later in the show. As we're planning a
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trip, is what we're doing. We're planning a trip for the show.
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We're taking the show mobile. But we will get to that. Let's start
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with I'm gonna try to do this comment just chinni shan is that close?
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Or see twenty three A three, which is substantially easier to pronounce, much
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much easier to say. All right, So we just talked about this thing
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not too long ago. We did. We told all of our listeners that
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there's going to be a comet that is likely going to be visible to the
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unaided eye in the fall of twenty twenty four. Now, when we talk
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about commets, we always have to I mean, we use language that's uncertain,
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and that's because comets are maybe the most unpredictable object of any in the
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zoo art of objects that astronomers study out there. And that's because they're basically
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a melting snowball, and so how they fly through the solar system and how
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they behave once they begin to be heated up by the Sun can be a
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rather unpredictable set of events, including the trajectories with which they fly into our
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part of the solar sets. So so this comet sue Chin Shawn Atlas or
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as you said, catalog number commet see twenty twenty three A three, which
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is going to be an object that had been predicted to be naked eye visible
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by this fall. Now a very famous astronomer in the comic community, Znik
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Seqina se keen catalog number Yeah, nineteen seventy four. Well, I don't
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know, I don't know, I don't know. We should have just gone
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with that. Maybe he's got a catalog number anyway, sucking second Nina.
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That sounds good. Yeah, that sounds next Secondina sed next second Nina said
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this. He said, it's inevitable, according to his new study, that
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this comment's going to break apart, and the evidence suggests that the comment has
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entered an advanced phase of fragmentation, he writes in a recent paper. So
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basically, doctor Secondina has seen evidence that this comment is is coming apart in
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the sense that it's doing some things that look like a comment that's coming apart.
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Number one, it's not brightening at the rate at which it had initially
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been predicted, and so this means there's not as much outgassing, there's not
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as much reflective surface. That's one indicator. Number two, it seems to
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have changed its orbit slightly. In other words, the trajectory with which it
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is traveling in toward the Sun, according to doctor Secondina, has altered a
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bit. And what that can indicate is this process called outgassing, where the
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comment is literally, as it's melting, it's shooting out gases in various directions
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that almost act like thrusters. And so they pushed, they pushed the comet
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in kind of unpredictable trajectories. And when that happens, now that's a pretty
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good indication that there's a lot more outgassing taking place than was originally predicted.
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And so this is another piece of evidence that the comet may be coming apart.
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And so with these kinds of changes that are being discovered, this comment
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expert has put out this paper and some statements to go along with it,
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saying that yeah, it looked like it was going to come in and be
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a very bright comet, but now if it comes apart, it is probably
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the kind of comet or a class of comet that we have seen before,
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which has which has bled off a large amount of its volatile elements and compounds,
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and therefore it'll just kind of bleed those volatiles off into space and basically
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will melt in a rapid way that won't allow the comet to become naked Eyevis.
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And so that's some disappointing news for people who we haven't seen a good
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comment in a while. Come by the Earth. You're just kind of excited
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to see this comet get bright in our skies and be able to show your
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kids and those kinds of things. Again, we were looking for that to
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possibly happen. In October twenty twenty four, some people speculated that that commet,
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if it had been if it had maintained a normal course, might have
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been as bright as the planet Venus in the sky, so that would be
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easily detectable to the unaided eye. Now, it should be noted that there
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are various astronomers, including those with the Royal Astronomical Society, particularly a professor
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by the name of Nick James, who works with Common Research as well,
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who don't agree with doctor Secanina. Even though doctor Secondina is one of the
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world's leading experts on comments. Professor Nick James says yeah to me, this
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doesn't really look like it's showing all the signs of a comment that's breaking up,
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and so there's some diversity of opinion out there about what's going to happen
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with this comment as it approaches the sun. If you want to read both
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sides of this, check out the great website spaceweather dot com. They've got
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a great article on it today, and that's as of the recording of the
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show July eleventh, twenty twenty four. Check out the spaceweather dot com page
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and you can see all of the details about the comment that may or may
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not be the great comment of twenty twenty four. A couple of thoughts.
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Doctor secondena that he didn't respond to this by saying, Hey, disagreeing with
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me is disagreeing with science. He didn't pull one of those things like we've
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had pop up in the Sorry, it's a whole other topic. I guess
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that is a different topic. But I will tell you that scientists disagreeing is
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what science is all about. That's my thoughts on it. So it's nice
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to know that it's open for discussion and consideration. You said that comments can
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be unpredictable based on their reaction to the heat from the sun. Me kind
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of predictable. When I have exposure to the heat from the sun, I
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sweat out volatile elements, and I do a lot of outgassing. But that's
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not unpredictable. That's just kind of happens. That's that's normal. The question
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is does it change your trajectory? Well, as you're moving through your home.
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I think a couple of times it may have. You know, not,
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it's not typical, but sometimes it probably has changed my trajectory just a
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couple of times, or that of those around you. Definitely, that's more
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like it. When I'm being very hyper sensitive to the people in the house,
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I might change my trajectory just to spare them some of the outgassing and
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the sweating. On top of that, let's go to Europe. European Space
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Agency has got a new rocket. So this is I guess. I always
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like the joke where you go, like you had the old five, this
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is the six models. So it's an upgrade, right, It is definitely
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an upgrade. So the air In five rocket is a famous rocket to those
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who know or follow our space exploration program, both here in the United States
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and overseas. The Area in five rocket has been retired and now the European
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Space Agency has launched its inaugural air on six. There we go West just
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said the upgrade the new and improved, and as soon as they launched it,
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they encountered some upper stage issues, so you know, if you've had
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upper stage issues before, it's not a pleasant thing. The sixty two meter
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tall or two hundred and three foot tall rocket did successfully lift off, so
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the thing got off from the European Space Agency's spaceport in French Guiana about three
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pm on the afternoon of July seventh, twenty twenty four. But then as
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it was going up into the air, it hit a notable snag. According
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to spaceflight now dot com, they called it a notable snag and it was
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in their final stage was going to use something called its auxiliary power unit,
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the APU, and that was what was powering the third stage as its timing
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was intended to fire, but it quickly shut off after only seconds and it
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caused the upper stage to deviate from its planing trajectory. That's a nice way
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of saying it got out of control and it was going war was not supposed
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to so anyway, they do what they do with these kinds of stages,
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and they detonated it so for safety. But anyway, it looks like the
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main stage of the Area on six worked just fine. It's just that second
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stage that had a little bit of trouble. So Stefan Israel, the CEO
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of are On Space, manufacturers of this rocket, said that they don't see
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this anomaly as an impediment to launching a military satellite on its second mission and
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targeting the launch early or later this year, so still wanting to go ahead
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and take a military payload later this year twenty twenty four. And direct quote
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from mister Israel says, this, what we have achieved tonight with the launch
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success enables us to prepare the next missions, starting with the second one.
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So we are perfectly on track now to make a second launch this year in
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twenty twenty four, So the anomaly has no consequence on the next launches.
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This quote according to our friends at spaceflightnow dot com. So, anyway,
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a lot of confidence that even though it had a little staging issue, even
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though there was some problems with the APU, looks like the rocket itself more
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or less function fine. We need to find some kind of parallel here.
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It's like SpaceX saying, well, yeah, some of the extended things we
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were attempting didn't go well, but the main part of the testing for our
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starship rocket went well. And so that's a similar a similar statement to what
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we're finding from air on space now about the area on six rocket. And
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again this is part of the way it's you know, rocket science is hard.
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You know, they have to do these things, and they have to
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test things, and they have to make improvements. So again moving forward with
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it. And this isn't a rocket designed right now to take people anywhere.
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That's not the goal later in the year. So it's again it's a different
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testing process than what we've just you know, recently witnessed from Boeing. So
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it's just different, right, it's a little bit of a different process,
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it is. I mean, so, whenever possible, you want to launch
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a vehicle, a space vehicle for the first time with no kind of payloads
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on it that really matter, right, you want to just test the vehicle
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on those launches. And of course that was something that was done you know
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in the Mercury and Gemini and Apollo programs. Space Shuttle was different because it
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was such a complicated system with its booster rockets, its fuel tank, and
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then this airfoil frame that was meant to come back down and land on a
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runway. The very first time it ever launched, human beings were on board,
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So John Young and Bob Crippen were the two astronauts on board that flew
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that very first Shuttle mission. So that was a different That was a different
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set of stresses for all of those engineers who were involved with the launch of
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that vehicle because they knew the very first time it was going up, human
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beings lives were at stake. So typically when companies can launch their rocket on
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a test with no substantial payload, they would rather do that. And that's
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what we just see. That's what we just saw with air and six right
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here, and so yeah, if they encountered some anomalies, which they encountered
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this time, they will fix those as much as SpaceX does and that will
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be back ready to go on the launch that does matter, which is coming
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up apparently later this year on a military satellite being launched by the European Space
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Agency. Let's we talk so much about James Webb these days. Because obviously
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that's the current hot telescope, right, that's the one that the most recent
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one. But we always like to mention when Hubble is still functional at a
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limited capacity now, but it's still sciencing and some science is taking place thanks
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to Hubble. Yeah, that's true. That's true. And the great thing
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about these space based telescopes when they're up there, they're taking data just all
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the time, and that data is being stored in massive archives, and even
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the people who originally took the data for whatever purposes they might have had,
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can't envision what somebody in the future might be able to do with that data.
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And so they make after a period of time, they make this archival
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data available to the scientific community for them to do archival projects. And so
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it's no longer proprietary data is now open for the use of all scientists.
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And that's basically what this story is. So some folks from the Space Telescope
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Science Institute, they dove into the archive of the Hubble Space telescope and they
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looked up every time this telescope had observed a certain dwarf galaxy, and this
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is this dwarf galaxy somewhat nearby to the Earth. It's only about two hundred
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and fifty thousand light years from Earth, which is very very close by.
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So this Draco dwarf galaxy, as it's known, is a companion galaxy to
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the Milky Way, and it's as such been observed a lot by Hubble space
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telescope because it's just a nearby example of one of these weird objects called a
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dwarf galaxy, which simply doesn't have as much mass as the big spiral galaxies,
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so it behaves differently, all right. So the scientists dove into eighteen
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years worth of archival data and they and they began to look at how that
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little dwarf galaxy had moved, or better yet, how the stars inside that
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galaxy had moved over that eighteen year period. And from that they were able
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to determine what's known as the proper motion of those stars. And that's a
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direction of motion that's kind of tangential to their line to the Earth. In
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other words, it's a side to side motion, right, it's a sidey
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side emotion rather than an innyout emotion. So the innyout emotion we call that.
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The radial velocity is measured by red shifts and blue shifts Doppler shifts,
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and so we can combine our knowledge of the Doppler shift or the radial motion
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of those stars, along with this sidey side emotion known as proper motion of
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those stars, and figure out how those stars are actually moving, kind of
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triangulating their direction of motion. Okay, so these archive, these archival data
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from this Draco dwarf galaxy allowed these scientists from the European Space Agency and the
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SDSCI to jump in and map out the direction of motion of those stars.
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Well, here's the fun part. How those stars are moving in that galaxy
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is all about gravity. They're moving around the center of mass of that galaxy
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according to how much mass is in that galaxy. But here's the thing.
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Not all of the mass in that dwarf galaxy is contained in conventional kind of
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matter like stars and gas and dust. It turns out that a pretty significant
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fraction of the mass of that dwarf galaxy is this other thing known as dark
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matter. And so if you can map out the way stars are moving over
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a substantially long enough period of time, you can figure out the proper motion
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in the radio velocities. In other words, you can figure out the actual
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motion of those stars. Then you can use the motion of those stars to
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figure out how the mass is distributed within that dwarf galaxy. In other words,
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you can figure out the shape of the gravitational field. Well. As
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the scientists did that, they realized that number one there definitely was a contribution
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from something beyond the visible matter, in other words, from this weird stuff
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called dark matter. And you have to understand that scientists have been arguing about
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what dark matter is since the early discovery of its existence, which was decades
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ago. We still don't really know. But this is a different kind of
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study because this study has allowed scientists to really get a look at what the
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dark matter distribution is within this particular dwarf galaxy to a really high accuracy.
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And the behavior of that dark matter looks like it's pointing toward a certain kind
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of dark matter. So, in other words, this study is helping scientists
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better understand what dark matter is everywhere, not just in this one galaxy,
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although you have to be careful about the kind of extrapolations. It's just a
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clue. So doctor Eduardo Vitrol from the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore is
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the lead author of the study, and he has this quote. Again,
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we can find this on NASA dot gov. He said this, our models
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tend to agree more with a cusp like structure. What does a cusp like
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structure, Well, the density increases really sharply toward the middle of the galaxy.
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So in other words, it's not all spread out through the dwarf galaxy.
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It's really all bunched up right there in the center. Okay. To
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go on with the quote, doctor Petrell says this aligns with cosmological models.
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While we cannot definitely say all galaxies contain a cusp like dark matter distribution,
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it's exciting to have such a well measured data that surpasses anything we've seen before.
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Okay, so that's according to doctor Patrol when he says it aligns with
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cosmological models. What he's talking about is something known as the cold dark matter
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model that is in opposition to the hot dark matter model. If you don't
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know those buzzwords. Hot dark matter means a bunch of really low mass particles
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that are just flying around at such a giant speed that they really don't interact
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much with anything, whereas cold dark matter particles. They're kind of bigger particles
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actually, and they're in large enough groups that they should be affecting things gravitationally
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based on their mass, but for some reason they simply don't interact gravitationally very
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much. So those are two very different flavors of these theoretical particles that may
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constitute dark matter out there, And this new study of the Draco Dwarf galaxy
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points toward the latter, and it points toward that cold dark matter model.
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So might be a good step in helping scientists and particularly cosmological theorists figure out
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what the universe is actually made of. Just any opportunities to study dark matter,
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obviously at this level are huge. As we get more and more,
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We've had a few stories similar to this. I'm just curious. Do many
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astronomers use the terms SAIDI SAIDI any audi Or is that from so many years
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of having school kids coming into the Cocola Space Science Center, or is it
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a bit about it. I will tell you that I try to translate from
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my audience, and I'm not talking about our audience on this podcast, but
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I do pick up terms like that from translating to the fourth graders or lower
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come in large numbers, or the freshmen in college, which you know it
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works for them as well. In my intro classes, you know, I
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have to say, you know, hey, this is SAIDI SAIDI, or
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this is anyaudi. It's like, oh, I can see the lights go
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on in the room. So and I don't mean I don't mean the lights
21:52
in the ceiling, I mean the lights over their heads. So anyway,
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so it's like, oh, okay. So sometimes I just use phrases like
21:57
SAIDI SAIDI and any audi fair to help better translate from whatever audience I'm speaking
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to. Coming up, after a quick break, we'll talk about a pretty
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significant discovery of an exoplanet. We'll also talk about a significant loss, maybe
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not for most people, a name that most people know, but certainly one
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for you. And our big announcement that we've got coming up. We'll do
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that right after this. So an exoplanet. It's in the Goldilocks zone.
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They say, it seems like it could be completely covered in water, and
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it's about Earth size. These are all checking boxes, right, and it's
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absolutely checking boxes. And maybe it can be noted that it's moving sidey siety.
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I don't really know. It could be that roundy, roundy around a
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star, almost certainly roundy around me. So all right, so what is
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an exoplanet. Well, that's a planet orbiting around another star. This planet
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looks like Europa. What's Europa? It's a moon around Jupiter. And the
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interesting thing about Europa is that in our solar system, Europa is the only
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other really good candidate that we almost have undisputable proof that it has liquid water
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oceans beneath an icy crust. Now, there are some other lunar candidates out
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there, moons around other planets in our own solar system that might also have
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this kind of structure, but for sure Europa, it's pretty well accepted that
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it's got some giant liquid water oceans, saltwater oceans beneath an icy crust.
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Okay, so story on universe today. An exoplanet has been located around a
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semi nearby star that looks like a giant version of Europa. In other words,
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icy crust, liquid water oceans beneath. And the interesting thing is this
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this this planet has been located in the habitable zone of its parent star.
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But also even if it wasn't an inhabitable zone, because it has liquid water
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oceans, it might be a good location to look for life on another world.
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Now this is so this in other words, this this exoplanet has two
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factors going for it that may indicate that it's a good location to look for
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life. So the scientific community recently rejoiced with a set of research that was
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done by the University of Montreal and scientists there where they have announced the discovery
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of this planet and it looks to be an ice covered exoplanet around the star
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called LHS eleven forty B. Now we read these catalog numbers off a lot.
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In fact, we just did an earlier part of the segment about comets.
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But basically it's just a catalog number. You might know this constellation.
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There's a constellation in the sky, and if you studied your constellations at all,
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you might know setus the sea monster or the whale. And so see
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this. The whale is the direction of the star that has a catalog number
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of LHS eleven forty. The planet is the B planet. That means it's
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the second planet to be discovered in this star grouping in this constellation. But
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the constellation self, the star itself is only about forty eight light years away,
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which makes it relatively close by to our own Sun. It's it's right
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here in the neighborhood of the Milky Way where the Earth can be found.
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So this makes it one of the closest known exoplanets, and it's the closest
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known exoplanet to its parent star in the habitable zone. Right, So it's
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a close to Earth exo plans that we know is in the habitable zone of
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its parents start. That's what I'm trying to put together. So all of
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that together makes us think, wow, this is an interesting star, interesting
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planet around the star. We need to look at it more carefully. So
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this group from the University of Montreal did that and they found some other interesting
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things about it. They also noticed that its atmosphere, even though it's larger
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than Earth, it's about one point seven times the size of Earth, which
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could push it up to a small gas giant planet, maybe like Neptune.
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It could be like a mini Neptune. Well, the interesting thing is they
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didn't find any signatures of the gas hydrogen in the atmosphere, not in any
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kind of substantial way, so there's not really a hydrogen envelope of gases around
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it. The way we see around the planet's uran. It's in Neptune here
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in our own Solar system, which already tells us well, okay, well
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maybe that's not then a gas giant planet or we know those as the ice
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giants. Maybe it's got other stuff around it. Well, then they found
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evidence for the compound of molecular nitrogen, which is interesting because nitrogen is something
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we find in the atmosphere of the Earth. It's the most common element in
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the Earth's atmosphere. And so now with the nitrogen that they find in this
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planet's atmosphere, they also know something else. That nitrogen likely wasn't there when
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the planet was formed, which means it must be developed by later processes.
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That's how the nitrogen enrichment happened in Earth's atmosphere as well. So this planet
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could have gone through a similar evolution process to our Earth. Okay, so
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now it's in the in the Goldilock zone. It's got a nitrogen atmosphere,
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not a hydrogen atmosphere. And now here comes the final kicker for the size.
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For the estimated size of this planet, it's about ten to twenty percent
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less dense than what they thought it would be if it was just a giant,
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rocky planet, and that indicates that this planet could have substantial liquid water
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oceans underneath its crust, similar to the moon Europa around the planet Venus.
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So here we go, friends, we have a nearby exoplanet. It's in
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the it's in the habitable zone of its parent star, it's got a nitrogen
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atmosphere, and it probably has liquid water oceans. In no small degree.
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This all adds up to a really interesting place for us to continue searching for
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the evidence of extraterrestrial life forms on these exoplanets. So the planet known as
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LHS eleven forty B around the star LAHS eleven forty in the constellation of Cetus
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might be an interesting place for human beings to look for other life in our
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galaxy, or life they're looking at us about a possibility of life here.
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You just never know. Maybe they're looking back at us. It's always a
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possibility, I suppose. All right, let's let's talk about Will Tierrian,
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a map maker of intergalactic proportions. And this one I hit you hard,
29:15
didn't it. You know? So if you've listened to our podcast or radio
29:21
broadcasts, you probably know if you're a follower, I tend to get a
29:25
little emotional once in a while, and I've just that's just the way I
29:27
roll. I kind of have a you know, a high level of spark
29:30
plug and so I get happy, I get silly, but I also get
29:34
sad. And this one makes me sad because when I very first started getting
29:40
into searching out the nighttime sky and learning all about the stars and constellations as
29:45
just a young person, way before I ever decided to pursue physics as a
29:48
career, I looked at star maps and a very famous starmap maker that made
29:56
all of the star maps that I had as a young person has recently passed
30:00
away, and this is Dutch celestial cartographer Will Tyrian. He created two landmark
30:08
star atlases used worldwide by amateur astronomers. He died on July fifth, just
30:15
a little just about a week ago, and it's sad for me. He
30:21
was eighty one years old and he had a great career, good life.
30:26
Sounds like he was a great guy. But man Will Tyrian to me is
30:30
a name associated with every star map I ever used to learn my way around
30:36
the sky and know where to point my telescopes at all those beautiful messier objects
30:41
and other things up in the sky. Those would be like the stars,
30:44
the galaxies, the nebula, the other really cool things like planetary nebula,
30:51
things like that. And so I used those Will Tyrian star maps to inspire
30:56
myself to want to learn more about astronomy and the fact that he made such
31:02
a major contribution to my life and my early career. Now knowing that he's
31:07
passed away, it just when I read that headline, I was like,
31:10
Ah, it's like losing an old friend. I never met Will Tyrian,
31:14
but Will Tyrian and I spent a lot of time together on those star maps.
31:18
So Will Tyrian's most popular work, Sky Atlas two thousand, first published
31:22
in nineteen eighty one, that was the origin of a lot of the star
31:25
maps that I had. It was a twenty six page work of star maps
31:30
displayed stars down to a magnitude of six point five. If you don't know
31:33
what that means, that means just beyond the visibility for the unaided eye,
31:38
which means you could find him with your telescope, your small backyard telescope and
31:41
really find your way around. And so he also contributed to the bright Star
31:48
Atlas two thousand, something called the Collins Night Sky, a really cool work
31:52
called Men, Monsters and the Modern Universe collaborating with George Lovey, and the
31:59
Cambridge Star Atlas two thousand. These were all works that Will Tyrian contributed to.
32:02
And again if you don't know them, if you're just a casual listener
32:06
to the show, you've never studied the night time Sky in detail, you
32:10
might not know who this is. But I promise you all of us who
32:14
are either amateur serious amateur groups or professional astronomers, we know who Will Tyrian
32:20
was. And in nineteen ninety three, the International Astronomical Union honored Will Tirian
32:24
and his contributions to astronomy by designating a minor planet with his name. So
32:30
the minor planet is nineteen thirty one UEA and a catalog number. It is
32:36
now known as the minor Planet Tyrian. So there you go. A sad
32:40
loss for the world of the community of astronomy, let's put it that way,
32:45
but also a time just to honor somebody's contribution, massive contribution to both
32:52
you know, my life personally and our field in astrophysics. I do a
32:57
lot of celebrity interviews and have over the years and many times when I when
33:01
I talked to maybe a voice actor, especially a voice actor, I think
33:06
there's something really there's a connection that they make with people. But obviously I've
33:12
interviewed a lot of bands, spent a lot of time at concerts and things,
33:15
and when someone loses a favorite artist, or they lose an actor,
33:20
a voice actor, or somebody that they've really sort of felt a connection with
33:22
in some way the character that they play, it just hits a different way.
33:28
And it's I like hearing you talk about Will Ryan this way, because
33:34
that's that's what it was for you. It was like losing a favorite musician
33:37
in a way, you know, somebody that really was I'm sorry to interrupt
33:42
you, but yeah, but that but that time in my life where I
33:45
was getting interested in astronomy as a passionate amateur, I mean every night,
33:53
I mean every night. Yeah, I spent studying that star map, going
34:00
in and out of a lighted environment where I can see the star map well,
34:04
and then walking out of the nighttime sky and going, oh, that's
34:06
where that's at. And this was not you know, thirty minutes, this
34:10
was four hours, because it was just the thing at that time of my
34:16
life. It was the thing I wanted to do I didn't want to I
34:20
mean, I've had different passions over my life. I've been a street actor,
34:23
I've been a musician, I've done a lot of different things with kind
34:28
of artistic endeavors. But when a person like myself, with a maybe slightly
34:34
compulsive personality gets hooked on something, you just really go for it, right,
34:39
And so all of those nights studying the star maps and seeing Will Tirian's
34:45
name on those, and then every time I bought a new star map there
34:47
was Will Tyrian's name again, and Will Tyrian just became a legend to me
34:52
and I'm sure all the other passionate amateurs like myself. So yeah, it
34:55
really is like that. It's similar to you know, if you're really to
35:00
a band, or if you're really into a movie, or if you have
35:01
a favorite author or something like that and that person passes away. It really
35:06
is a similar kind of connection that you feel. All right, let's talk
35:10
about a couple of weeks from now, actually less than a couple of weeks
35:14
from now. So we normally do a show on Thursdays. We're doing it
35:17
on Thursday the eleventh, Now, so less than two weeks from now on
35:22
a Tuesday, we've been invited by the folks at NASA to come down and
35:27
cover a monumental event, something that was on our radar. And then when
35:34
we get these emails, we're like, hey, I guess we have to
35:37
go to Kennedy Space Center. Now, we've done broadcasts from there in the
35:42
past, but it's been a little while. It's gonna be nice to get
35:45
back down there and do this. But the latest latest in the Artemis mission
35:51
as they get ready to I don't is it currently, I guess being shipped
35:55
around Florida and it's by boat. It's constructed in New Orleans. But I'll
36:02
let you talk more about exactly what's going on with the rocket itself. Yeah,
36:07
that's the plan. So what this is, friends, is this human
36:10
beings have not left Earth orbit and gone to the Moon since nineteen seventy two.
36:17
That was the last time. That's Apollo seventeen, so the last time
36:23
that people flew to the Moon was in the very early nineteen seventies. NASA's
36:30
Artemis program is an endeavor to send human beings back to the Moon and ultimately
36:37
to the surface of the Moon. We flew a capsule, We took their
36:42
ride and we threw it on a rocket, and just like we were talking
36:45
about with Arion six a little bit ago, we did an unpiloted test where
36:49
we tested all the machinery necessary to send people back to the Moon. The
36:53
capsule called Oryan, the rocket called the Space Launch System the SLS. This
36:59
is all part of the art to Missus infrastructure, mechanical infrastructure. We flew
37:02
that capsule around the back side of the Moon and brought it back home safely.
37:07
Well, the next time we fly the SLS with the Orion capsule,
37:12
human beings are going to be on board, and that capsule is going to
37:15
go around the back side of the Moon. That's the Artemus two mission.
37:19
All the crew has already been picked for that mission. They're going to ride
37:22
that Orion capsule and then ride it back home to make sure they can do
37:27
that before Artemis three, where they actually go down to the surface. All
37:30
right, So the giant rocket that's going to launch them to the Moon,
37:36
the main stage, the big heavy engine core stage of that rocket is arriving
37:42
at Kennedy Space Center's launch complex on the twenty third of July and as Wes
37:50
said, it's traveling from the Misshow Center in New Orleans on a barge.
37:57
It's going to go out into the Gulf of Mexico and then take a little
38:00
boat trip around the Florida Peninsula from the Gulf side around the tip down there
38:06
by Key West, and then come back up the Atlantic side for a docking
38:10
at the Kennedy Space Center's dock, and then to come aboard on ground and
38:16
be transported to the vehicle assembly building where the rest of that rocket will be
38:21
stacked. Now, that's a pretty cool thing. And as Wes said,
38:27
we as members of the media here on our podcast and our radio broadcasts,
38:32
we have been invited to go down and help cover this event for you the
38:36
listening audience on July twenty third. So we're gonna get a chance to see
38:39
that giant set of boosters with four count them, four RS twenty five engines
38:46
left over from the Space Shuttle. Ever, by the way, I was
38:49
Space Shuttle's main power plant. They've they've been kind of souped up and boosted
38:52
a little bit, but four Space Shuttle only had three of those engines.
38:55
By the way, SLS has four of those mighty artists twenty five engines.
39:00
We're going to get to see that main stage booster with its four RS twenty
39:04
fives come ashore and then be transported to the vehicle assembly building. So we're
39:08
looking forward to that and we will include that in our podcast coming up following
39:15
that event on July twenty third. We have no idea exactly what we'll be
39:17
getting into, but we'll get into as much as we can get into.
39:21
That's what we did in the past, at least anything they invited us to
39:23
take part in, we said yes please, So that's I don't want to
39:28
push it too far, but I'm hoping they let me ride that stage like
39:30
slim Pickens. That would be great. Yeah, I can just do that.
39:34
Then that's all I really ask? Is that too much? I mean,
39:37
if they offer, we're going to say yes. That's all we can
39:40
say. You know, we might not go in there with our hands up
39:44
asking to do it, but if they say, hey, how would you
39:46
like, We're going to say yes. I think we learned on the last
39:50
trip down there, when they start a question that way, just say yes
39:52
before they even say what the rest of it is, How would you guys
39:57
like to yes? We would and then if the rest of the question is
40:00
go on the roof of the va B, then hey, we ended up
40:04
on the roof of the va B. It happens sometimes. If we get
40:07
offered again, you can you can bet we'll We'll say yes and go on
40:10
the roof of the va B again if that works out. Uh, looking
40:15
for or you know, or ride the main stage like Flimpickens and Doctor Strange
40:19
Land if friends, if that happens, listeners to the show. If that
40:22
happens, I will take a selfie and we will post it to our native
40:27
stars social media sites. I mean, anything is possible. I suppose,
40:31
Uh. We a couple of times we could kind of hear that you guys
40:36
have kids moving around the building. Uh, because I know you guys have
40:39
a camp going on now you're in that mode of summer camps and things at
40:44
the Cocola Space Science Center. Uh, but still with you know, all
40:47
this amazing air conditioning included in the cost of admission. If somebody comes down,
40:52
I was there yesterday picking up a camper who happened to be there,
40:55
or actually two campers, but only one actually belongs to me. The other
41:00
one I would claim him, though he's a good kid, and you know
41:02
his parents as well. But there were people down there that were enjoying the
41:09
air conditioning while checking out the facilities, and it was fun. It was
41:14
great kind of getting to see them, several kids in there just enjoying things
41:19
and again out of the heat. I mean, that's the other part of
41:22
it as well. First of all, I consider it an absolute blessing that
41:29
I have a career where I get to work at a space science center,
41:32
so that to me, it's just exciting. You know, when certain parts
41:37
of the job are getting me down, all I have to do is walk
41:38
out to our exhibit gallery and find a random person and say, Hey,
41:42
how would you like to talk about space? I don't really say it that
41:45
way. I say something to the effect of, hey, has anybody told
41:46
you about this artifactor? Can I tell you a story about this poster that
41:51
you're looking at or whatever. And people who come here they come here because
41:57
they have a passion for exploration, They have curiosity for our universe, and
42:01
we love to engage with people as they come in. And another fun thing
42:07
about working at a science center is it really is seasonal in terms of the
42:12
kind of folks that come to see us. Right now, we're in our
42:15
summer mode. We have a lot of grandparents with their grandchildren, which is
42:19
fantastic. We love to make a great opportunity for spending time together in that
42:23
way and sharing a love and curiosity for space. We also have a lot
42:27
of people who are just traveling across the country and find out about our facility
42:30
and stop in. And so we talked to a whole group of people who
42:34
were from Michigan who are just kind of traveling through. They saw us online.
42:37
They said, there's a space center in Columbus, Georgia. Yes,
42:40
there is, friends and so it's not a NASA Space Center, but it
42:44
is a Space Science center. And so they popped in and we told them
42:46
all kinds of great stories about all of the artifacts we have on display.
42:52
We showed them the observatory, we toured them through our theater, and they
42:55
just had a great time. So if you're in the area and you want
42:59
to come down and just check out some fun things, as Wes said in
43:02
air conditioning, when it is ridiculously hot outside right now in Columbus, Georgia,
43:07
come on into the Space Science Center and ask for a tour. Come
43:12
check out at one of our shows in the atmosphere of theater, take a
43:15
simulated flight to space and board our space shuttle Lotysey. Let the kids jump
43:19
in those flights and those motion based flight simulators and have a good fly in
43:22
those. Drive around some virtual rovers on Mars. These are actual rovers,
43:28
but they're not really on Mars anyway, So all this stuff can be done
43:31
inside the exhibit gallery and more. Come by and check us out if you
43:35
want to know more. Www dot CCSC dot org, Charlie Charlie SamSam Charlie
43:40
dot org, or just follow us on Facebook friends, because anytime we do
43:45
new announcements and things, that appears on our Facebook page. And I promise
43:50
there'll be some pictures from the Kennedy Space Center with the core stage of the
43:54
Artemis Rocket the SLS in about a little over a week. So anyway,
44:00
come come check that out and uh and we'll have a good time together.
44:05
Sew and I thank you for listening, and we will do this again next
44:07
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